The Curse of “Enlightenment”

I fully understand that I’ve begun with an odd title, but I assure you all that it will make perfect sense momentarily. Enlightenment in the spiritual sense that will put us more in accordance with the will of the Devata is obviously among the worthiest of goals. The Enlightenment that I am referring to is that which took place in Europe during the 17^th and 18^th centuries. While the ideas of this period had their benefits in certain realms of government, science, and social order, the catastrophic damage they wreaked upon the West’s view of religion and spirituality far outweighed their temporal usefulness. The men of this age who advocated for the ascendancy of reason hoodwinked a massive part of the world’s population, including themselves, into a mindset that would ultimately pollute the spiritual journeys of themselves and all of their progeny. Not only that, but echoes of these ideas have taken root throughout the East as well, and they threaten to cast their full shadow over these regions. This may sound like something of an overstatement, but I find it rather difficult to understate the madness of any strain of thought that ultimately leads those who would have otherwise been our brothers and sister in the Devata’s service astray.

In such an indictment, it is only fair that I should begin with an overview of the period in question. The central tenet of the “Enlightenment” was that all aspects should be governed by reason above all else. Its foremost advocates primarily believed in God, if I understand correctly, though they favored a deistic approach that is quite assuredly false. Nonetheless, it is worth noting that most Enlightenment thinkers did not advocate for what, in my opinion, became their bleak legacy. While their central tenet was not the direct source of the West’s spiritual degradation, the assumption that all old institutions could be tossed aside and rationally rebuilt was undoubtedly pivotal in it. The result of this was that when people were angry with the Catholic and Protestant Churches, whose doctrines had been polluted by titanic heresies since ancient times, they decided that they were irrational and that society could be rebuilt without them within its framework. This wasn’t a problem until numerous people began making one horrific mistake. They didn’t simply find those groups to be irrational. They found religion and belief in God as a whole to be irrational. It is, without a doubt, the single worst case of throwing the baby out with the bathwater that I can imagine. This kind of thinking influenced people throughout the West over time and, eventually, infiltrated the intelligentsia of the East as well.

In addition to acting as an inspiration for atheism, this period ravaged many spiritual seekers’ discernment to a degree that has left them all but incapable of finding truth, even if it is neatly perched right in front of him. The Enlightenment gave rise to the belief that everything that does not withstand the scrutiny of the individual can and should be tossed aside in favor of something that does. In short, it taught people to approach everything, including religion, with the assumption that they are right and that anything that opposes them is wrong. By contrast, a true seeker of the Devata’s will should approach their search in exactly the opposite manner. It is only by noting that one isn’t necessarily correct that one can remain truly open, after all. Sadly, many seekers in this day and age do not understand this and will only accept that which fits their criteria, which blinds them to the truth. It is my belief that all of this has occurred because the thinkers of the Enlightenment age opened the door to change in the wrong way.

This particular topic strikes a chord with me because this period had such potential. There is nothing wrong with elevating reason’s importance. After all, the Devata is a being whose reason is perfect beyond human understanding. Had people of this period been more moderate in their approach to applying reason to faith, they could well have rectified years of waywardness by delving into the works of Saints and the manifestations of Jagadguru. All the while the temporal success of the time could have been retained with little difficulty. Unfortunately however, this opportunity was not only ignored, but twisted to such an extent that it became a pariah on the world’s spiritual development. We can only hope that the spread of this mindset can be held at bay until the hour of Lord Maitreya’s arrival.